DeHaat, an agritech startup rooted in Belgium, has raised $115 million in Series D funding led by Sofina and Lightrock India. Existing investors Prosus, RTP Global, Sequoia Capital India, and FMO all participated in the round, as did Temasek.

DeHaat is a technology-based business to farmers (B2F) platform that offers full-stack agricultural services to farmers, including distribution of high-quality agricultural inputs, customized farm advisory, access to financial services, and market linkages for selling their produce. It was founded in 2012 by IIT, IIM, and NIT alumni Amrendra Singh, Shyam Sundar, Adarsh Srivastav, and Shashank Kumar.

The funds from the current fundraise will be used to extend the company's geographic emphasis, enhance investment in technical infrastructure, and broaden its financial services products.

Since its founding in 2012, the company has raised about $157 million in total funding.

“At DeHaat, we're on a quest to create the world's largest agricultural technology platform. Our team has grown to over 850 members with profound knowledge of growth and strategy, supply chain, technology, and agricultural science. The last seven months have been spectacular for DeHaat, with a five-fold increase in revenue. As a result, we are now well positioned to replicate our success in all major agriculture clusters across India in the next 12-15 months", states Shashank Kumar, co-founder and CEO, DeHaat.

DeHaat claims to have created a rural retail network of over 3,000 DeHaat microentrepreneurs for last-mile delivery and aggregation, servicing over 650,000 farmers in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Odisha. With several agri services for farmers, the company has been expanding to new geographies like MP and Rajasthan.

DeHaat assures that it is committed to continuing to invest in technology. Earlier this year, it acquired Farm Guide, a SaaS-based company that provides satellite-based insights and guidance to farmers. The current tech team has grown to 120 people, working on AI/ML-based crop advising, last-mile supply chain traceability, and a B2B SaaS agritech platform for input and output vendors.

This round was raised just nine months after the last one, and the company has already executed two key acquisitions for inorganic expansion. Institutional investors Omnivore Partners and Pi Capital (a Narrottam Shekhsaria Group family fund) which participated in the first institutional round in 2019 have partially abandoned the current round.

The company's technology department is planned to increase to 200 members in the next six months, according to Kumar.

DeHaat has already facilitated a loan book of Rs 75 crore in just five months of operation, with around 17000 farmers insured through its platform's 12 banking partners.

“We've been watching DeHaat's progress over the years and have been impressed by their rapid expansion and strong network of micro-entrepreneurs. DeHaat has established the greatest first-mile network for farmers through unique social engineering and tech-led execution, and is well-positioned to help transform agriculture by enhancing yields and farmer income”, says Vaidhehi Ravindran, partner at Lightrock India.

"The last seven months have been spectacular for DeHaat, with a fivefold increase in revenue. As a result, we are now well positioned to replicate our success in all of India's main agricultural clusters in the next 12-15 months”, adds Kumar.